Winter Work

Ann shared with us her “String of Bad Luck”, “A Change of Fortune”, “Holiday on Hold”, “Trials of Technology” and “Learning the Language” article series over the last few weeks. Today she shares with us something a little different…

One reason for my trip to France is to progress a book I am writing. It’s in the genre of the Chicken Soup For The Soul series by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen. The difference is that my book will also be a journal so you can reflect and write your own stories and life lessons. I’ve written sixteen short stories so far. Here is the book introduction and the first story, inspired by the head gardener at Monet’s Garden, Giverny. Love to hear what you think.

Introduction to “Winter Work”

“By three methods we may learn wisdom:

First, by reflection, which is noblest;

Second, by imitation, which is easiest;

And third, by experience, which is the bitterest.”

Confucius

It never ceases to amaze me how the universe delivers the information we need to learn and grow, through everyday experience. Insight, lessons and inspiration, are given as gifts. Sometimes these gifts come wrapped in beauty, sometimes in pain and often in the funny incidents of life (I believe the universe has a sense of humour). We have to unwrap the gifts to discover the present within. However, we can miss the learning opportunities of our life experience if we do not pause and reflect.

In this book I share with you some of the things that I have seen, heard or experienced and the learning I have taken from each. Someone once said: “You will be the same in five years time as you are today except for the people you meet and the books you read.” I hope that this book will contribute some small positive difference for you.

I also want to encourage you, through this book, to pause and reflect on the incidents and occurrences in your life. Everything happens for a reason. It has been said that experience is the worst teacher; she gives the test first, then the lesson. If we can learn life’s lessons as they are presented maybe we won’t have to repeat them over and over. So the book is a journal for you to write your own anecdotes and the life lesson you can take from them.

Winter Work

Prolific French painter, Claude Monet (1840-1926) was a leader of fundamental changes in the world of art. Over 70 years, his painting style moved from the conventional, classical style, to impressionism with strong Japanese influences, to abstract expressionism. His painting continued to evolve – despite near blindness caused by cataracts – well into his eighties. Monet’s passion and creativity in the second half of his life were stimulated by the magnificent garden that surrounded his country home.

Monet created a painter’s garden with a rich palette of colour and light that reflects the changing seasons with a riot of new and different blooms. Its composition is orchestrated to educate the eye, inspire and nurture artistic creativity, and delight the senses. To this day, painters are drawn to Giverny to extend their talent and visitors from around the world enjoy the beauty of a living masterpiece.

Eight full-time gardeners tend the beds and ponds that are filled with ever-changing displays. Early spring brings the blues and mauves, dominated by irises, later come the pinks of geraniums and roses and the bold orange poppies, nasturtiums and yellow sunflowers. Then of course, there are the famous waterlilies that were the exclusive subject of Monet’s last twenty-five years of painting.

The garden is closed to the public from October to April and it is then that the gardeners do their most important work. Having finished for the year, the perennials are lifted from the beds. The plants are divided and those that are over, discarded; but those with the promise of new life are cared for and nurtured for the future. Any that were previously in the wrong place are reclassified and made ready for replanting in the right pace. Compost and mulch are used to replenish the soil. As any gardener knows, what has died is best used to nourish new growth.

Gilbert Vahé (Monet’s Garden At Giverny. (DVD) Two Four Productions) head gardener at Monet’s garden in Giverny says: “… you can see this winter work in preparation for spring is absolutely essential.”

And so it is with life. There are times when, out of the public eye, we must do our “Winter Work”. Often the cold grey season is when we must toil. We let go what is dead and nurture what promises to flower in future. However, that which is finished is not wasted; it provides necessary nutrients for future growth.

image: Liam Moloney